[636]. p. 361, Copt.
[637]. That is the Sphere of Destiny acting through its emissary the Moira or Fate described above, p. [184] supra.
[638]. It is a curious example of the fossilizing, so to speak, of ancient names in magic that Shakespeare should preserve for us in the Tempest and Macbeth the names of Ariel and Hecate which we find in the Μ. τ. σ. No doubt both were taken by him from mediaeval grimoires which themselves copied directly from the Graeco-Egyptian Magic Papyri mentioned in Chap. III supra. Cf. the use of Greek “names of God” like ischiros (sic!) athanatos, etc. in Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft, passim.
[639]. So that it could not profit by the knowledge of the awful punishments prepared for sinners. I do not know that this idea occurs elsewhere.
[640]. p. 380, Copt.
[641]. The Marcosian authorship of the whole MS. is asserted by Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age, vol. I. p. 47. Köstlin, Über das gnostische System des Buch Pistis Sophia in the Theologische Jahrbücher of Baur and Zeller, Tübingen, 1854, will have none of it, and declares the Pistis Sophia to be an Ophite work. In this, the first commentator on the book is followed by Grüber, Der Ophiten, Würzburg, 1864, p. 5, §§ 3, 4.
[642]. Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk I. c. 19.
[643]. Thus, according to Marcus (Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 8, § 11, pp. 145, 146, Harvey), “that name of the Saviour which may be pronounced, i.e. Jesus, is composed of six letters, but His ineffable name of 24.” The cryptogram in the Pistis Sophia is in these words (p. 125, Copt.): “These are the names which I will give thee from the Boundless One downwards. Write them with a sign that the sons of God may show them forth of this place. This is the name of the Deathless One ααα ωωω, and this is the name of the word by which the Perfect Man is moved: ιιι. These are the interpretations of the names of the mysteries. The first is ααα, the interpretation of which is φφφ. The second which is μμμ or which is ωωω, its interpretation is ααα. The third is ψψψ, its interpretation is οοο. The fourth is φφφ, its interpretation is ννν. The fifth is δδδ, its interpretation is ααα, which above the throne is ααα. This is the interpretation of the second αααα, αααα, αααα, which is the interpretation of the whole name.” The line drawn above the three Alphas and Omegas is used in the body of the text to denote words in a foreign (i.e. non-Egyptian) language such as Hebrew; but in the Papyrus Bruce about to be described, the same letters without any line above are given as the name of “the Father of the Pleroma.” See Amélineau’s text, p. 113. The “moving” of the image (πλάσμα) of the Perfect Man is referred to in Hippolytus (op. cit. p. 144, Cruice). That the Tetragrammaton was sometimes written by Jewish magicians with three Jods or i.i.i. see Gaster, The Oldest Version of Midrash Megillah, in Kohut’s Semitic Studies, Berlin, 1897, p. 172. So on a magic cup in the Berlin Museum, conjuration is made “in the name of Jahve the God of Israel who is enthroned upon the cherubim ... and in the name A A A A” (Stübe, Judisch-Babylonische Zaubertexte, Halle, 1895, pp. 23-27). For the meaning of the words “above the throne,” see Franck, La Kabbale, p. 45, n. 2.
[644]. The opening words of the invocation βασεμὰ χαμοσσὴ βαιανορὰ μισταδία ῥουαδὰ κουστὰ βαβοφὸρ καλαχθεῖ which Irenaeus (Bk I. c. 14, § 2, pp. 183, 184, Harvey) quotes in this connection from Marcus certainly read, as Renan (L’Église Chrétienne, p. 154, n. 3) points out, “In the name of Achamoth” (i.e. Sophia).
[645]. See n. 3, p. [180], supra. In the Pistis Sophia proper Jesus is never spoken of save as “the Saviour” or as “the First Mystery.”